Manual Focus

Manual Focus is turning faces one-80, arms and legs upside down and swapping the front with the backside of the body. Exchanging bodies from animals, disorganized creatures to headless humans and other unnamed categories. Masks of old men on the back head of three nude women transform them into a 12 legged organism, crossing out their identity by covering their real face with the artificiality of a mask. It isn‘t the monster in itself but rather the monstrous connection between nude/masked, artificial/real, male/female that produces an unfamiliar gaze at the bodies we already know. Monsters are not a species that you can get familiar with, they disappear and slip away unfocused.

 

Premiered in 2003 at Mousonturm, Frankfurt

Texts & interviews

Manual Focus – Interview with Mette Ingvartsen